In Memory of Vladimir Fabry – Slovak Political Refugee and United Nations Lawyer – Who Died September 17-18, 1961, with Dag Hammarskjöld.

The Montreal Star, 19 September 1961

Here is another brief article about Alice Lalande, who died with Dag Hammarskjold, which was sent on to me by Susan Williams. Because there is so little information about the 15 others who died with the Secretary General, I would like to use this blog as a place to share their stories, too. I encourage people to please contact me, if you have news clippings or anything else you are willing to share about these brave people. I would be glad to honor them here.

City Woman Served UN 15 Years

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 19–
Alice Lalande, a bilingual Montrealer who served the UN for 15 years, died in a Northern Rhodesia plane crash with UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold yesterday because he placed such high value on her services.

The 48-year-old Montrealer was a favorite of the late Mr. Hammarskjold. Every time he went abroad and was able to borrow Miss Lalande from his own overseas officers Mr. Hammarskjold did so.

For a brief period Miss Lalande was secretary to Canadian General E. L. M. Burns, now Canadian disarmament adviser here, then commander of United Nations emergency forces on the Gaza strip. She went directly from the Gaza strip to Leopoldville in the former Belgian Congo when the UN first became involved late in the summer of 1960.

Miss Lalande, whom Mr. Hammarskjold seconded for his personal staff shortly before the fatal flight from Leopoldville, was personal secretary to the chief of the UN’s Congo operations, Sture Linner.

Miss Lalande joined the UN secretariat on June 24, 1946.

Born in Joliette, Que., Feb. 6, 1913, Miss Lalande worked at the University of Montreal after graduating as a secretary from a Montreal business school. She was a stenographer in French and English in the languages division of the UN department of conference and general services from June 24, 1946 to May 21, 1948, when she became a bilingual secretary in the office of the assistant secretary general in that department.

In June 1948 she was transferred to the UN Palestine secretariat as a secretary, and in January 1951 she became a secretary with the UN conciliation commission for Palestine in Jerusalem. In 1954 she returned to UN Headquarters as a secretary in the office of the assistant secretary general for social affairs.

In 1956 she served as a bilingual secretary with the United Nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, in Paris, for three months. Later in 1956 she returned to UN Headquarters and served with the department of economic and social affairs.